November 29, 2012
-
Ask the Gamer Guy…Serious Questions
I find myself in a the strange situation of trying to translate male behavior for young women…and frankly, I am baffled.
So I am appealing to the Gamer Guys of Xanga.’
Gentlemen…WHAT are the fucking rules of dating you?
I will offer a scenario…a young gamer lady (not a kid) recently was invited over to a guy’s place to watch a show and “hang out”. Turns out the young man in question is into ALL the same games, the same systems, the same movies and shows, books, manga—you name it. They have a good time, lots of laughs, and nerdy interaction. She gets invited back…and ten minutes before she arrives gets a text. Ummm…don’t freak out, but my GF came over to study. He is offered a polite out—another time maybe? But no…come on over.
It goes without saying that the GF was NEVER before mentioned.
She hates all things Gaming, and has ZERO common interest with said Gamer Dude. She kept popping in to check on things…particularly after laughter happened. She looked at them like they were BOTH nuts, and said “I don’t understand a word of that.”
Oh…and when the gamer girl had no idea what was coming down, he mentioned that he wanted to make a regular gaming night with her.
Ummmm…Huh?
Now I get that guys are guys…but seriously…WHY ask a gamer chick over if:
1. You HAVE a regular girlfriend.
2. You know she will be there.
3. You know she thinks your interests are stupid. (And WTF are you dating her, again?)
Maybe I am wrong, but can one assume that said Gamer Dude MIGHT be interested in a woman (21) that shares the same interests he does…or has the lady been “friend zoned” (and gentlemen? GUYS do it every bit as much as women.)
So have at it gentlemen. If there ARE any rules…what are they?
Have you ever dated one girl for gaming…and another for “other” games?
Any advice, or suggestions are welcome, because I seriously have NO idea how it works.
Post a Comment
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Comments (7)
Never did anything like that in my life, so with that scenario, I would keep asking number 3. I’m currently in the process of (hopefully) reeling in a girl who loves video games as much as I do and where we connect very well on a conversation level.
lol. not a guy but I had a lot of gamer guy friends when I was younger. It’s because they’re stupid.
They had similar experiences and were totally clueless as to why they should have mentioned a GF at all. They would turn to me when I yelled at them and would say something to the likes of: “Why would I talk about my GF to her? When the OTHER guys come over we don’t talk about her either. We’re here to play games” (they think of her as a guy)
My guess is this boy didn’t even realise she had a crush on him and when he texted her to tell her his GF was over his worries were she’d be annoyed if she got in there and the gf got in the way of gaming. (your gf is intruding on my gaming time)
They get REAL into gaming and that all they see. He was probably so pysched to find a good gamer bud to play with that he didn’t see further than that.
From what I’ve observed relationships created in the gaming world are often strange. “Hitting” on people seems more prevalent in MMORPG games like World of Warcraft probably because players have to spend so much time in those games and much of the time requires sitting around and waiting for something to happen. I was a co-guild leader of a World of Warcraft guild. I saw a lot of married players flirting with other players. One guy, not married, in our guild flirted with every woman he could. I found it disturbing because a girl shouldn’t be forced to put up with that because she wants to play the game. He was a leader in our guild at a lower position but I’m sure, as it is in a workplace, girls felt they had to take his crap because he was a leader and could make decisions which affected how quickly a player would develop their character. One day a girl logged on and as usual he said something sexual to her. I told him to STFU after which she “whispered” me and thanked me. She told me she hated logging onto the game because he always jumped on her. She had a RL BF who was also in the guild and this guy wouldn’t jump on her if he was logged on but when the BF wasn’t online…
On another day another player in our guild whispered me and asked if I’d talk to one of the other players in the guild because, as he told me if he continued talking to him he was going to kill him. The guy I was being asked to talk to was a relatively new member. Our guild had over 150 players and I didn’t really know this guy. The reason I was asked to talk to him was the daughter of the guy who asked me to was 13, had just started playing and this guy who was in his 20s was persistently hitting on her for sex. It was a no-brainer for me. Also, the guy who asked me was a great guy, an excellent player and an officer in the Air Force. I asked the 20 something nicely to stop hitting on my friend’s 13 year old daughter. He got all pissy, accused the guild of being a bunch of wimps if this is the way we thought and argued I was trying to censor him. Sound familiar on Xanga? I pointed out the issue of pedophilia but he continued with his wimp censorship argument so I booted him from the guild because I had that privilege as a co-guild leader.
During my years playing WoW I witnessed divorces that happened because guys were caught “connecting” with girls in the game. All the random flirtation was what drove me to leave the game.
RPGs like Unreal Tournament were different because the moment you logged onto a server you were in the middle of a fire fight. Players don’t have much time to play the field in those games and I enjoyed Unreal Tournament far more than WoW for that reason alone.
I don’t know if any of that shed light on the subject. What I observed is many people are ingenuous online and this causes a lot of heartache and mistrust.
I’ll add this. Once a person is in a relationship, even if there is a lack of shared interests there is time and energy vested which is not easy to let go of.
Btw, I still hear girls don’t play or are not that good in online games. That’s bull. I was also a co-leader in our Unreal Tournament clan too. A girl in our clan won the annual “Proving Grounds” 1on1 ladder competition. That’s huge. We had several awesome female players in our clan. It was funny though. She told me of all the players I pissed her off the most because I owned her. It was just one of those things. I have no doubt she was the better player but somehow she couldn’t get the better of me. She’d come after me over and over and over but BAM. haha. Our best Druid healers in WoW and some of our best Hunters were also females. One of our best warrior “tanks” and our best Priest….female. It was a female who taught me to the point I was the most sought after Hunter on our server. After she did that she put her Hunter aside and leveled a Druid. I’d get whispers all day asking if I could do an “Instance” with this or that group. A Horde player hopped on his Alliance character to tell me his Horde guild had a lot of respect for me even though Horde and Alliance were vicious enemies. All of that was due to her sharing her Hunter secrets with me. So yeah. Anyone who doesn’t want females on their teams don’t know what they’re missing.
What on Earth changed in the last couple of years. holy crap.
The Gamer Guy is supposed to be the one stuck in the perpetuating friend zone of no return. The Gamer Girl does not give him time of day beyond gaming and what not because of, well, life, and/or long queue (also known as sausage caravan, whether on the interwebz or real life).
Usually I’ve seen the reverse, girls compartmentalizing guys so she can have her relationship meaningful or otherwise while having guys should could be open about yet partially warm, others that just dote on her, and so on. They can’t do that with their female friends due to trust issues, or just not having the right people for companionship. Much easier to do with guys. But it’s not that guys are nicer and easier, it’s that they’re the other sex and automagically re-tune themselves for girls they like in one way or another. Platonic does not exist once you go past a certain boundary.
But this seems to be the same exact thing except it’s the other way around.
This is all news to me.
Personally I don’t believe in dating. Whatever happened to good old fashioned honesty and intentions?
If he’s got reservations about his GF being there then he knows on some level what he’s doing is wrong either b/c A) He wants gamer girl, or B) he knows gamer girl wants him, or C) whatever he’s doing wouldn’t be approved by GF or maybe, D) wants both of em but maybe in a twisted way knowing he’s “taken” increases his value and desirability.
I can’t comment about dating but … esp. for young women, they’re far too invaluable for this kind of nonsense… if the guy can’t be upfront about these things then don’t wait on him to grow up. The only move that should be made is moving on.
I think the biggest part of this problem is that all these lines, social cues, etc. have been blurred. Courting is a myth, may as well push dating into obscurity make things seem more natural or meaningful.
The rule to me seems to be have no clue what you’re doing until you both have a clue.
Sorry, hard to really be clear on anything as reading the scenario got my blood boiling. You can’t compartmentalize everything. A person is a whole, individual, complete thing. This is like playing with fire. It’s not cool at all. People get hurt.
i like what amandascowen said. having been through the “nice guy” treatment, I can say with honesty and certainty to some girls it was as if I didn’t have a penis.
I just can’t imagine how a guy with a girlfriend could make that kind of error? maybe it’s precisely b/c his GF is not into any of his geekery that a girl being into them kinda casts her out of that mold and into the one-of-the-guys molds.
even if that’s the case that can only go on for so long. it’s short-lived. the more time they spend the more sand in the bottom part of the hourglass… she can’t be one of the guys forever and vice versa. (key then being frequency & quality of time spent, imo combination of those determines when the facade collapses.)
@versatil - Wow…I have to thank you for your replies. I wanted to be clear that “friend zoning” is NOT a female only sport—in fact, it’s existed since I was in college—which was 35 years ago, but back then, the guys made it sort of a an Olympic event.
One guy I knew put me FIRMLY in the friend zone, which I accepted…for three years. Then one night he decided I was actually worth his other-than-friendly intentions, and frankly it pissed me off.
The girl gamers I know are cool, smart young women. They give as good as they get…but some of the Gamer guys seem to be stuck on Lara Croft or something…even when they are hardly Drake themselves. I’m glad you acknowledge that the pendulum can swing both ways!